Ben Francisco

For the first decade of his professional baseball career, Jered Weaver abhorred stretching. Therefore, he didn't do it. He avoided all but the most cursory forms of it.

So what if it hurt his flexibility? The Angels right-hander was good enough, inherently lanky enough, to withstand the ensuing elasticity issues. He excelled to a 113-60 record and a 3.24 earned-run average over his first eight big league seasons.

After his eighth season, 2013, he realized that at age 31 he needed more adaptability and began to stretch more. But he stopped each exercise when it hurt and didn't produce many benefits.

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